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Real vs. manufactured outrage

It isn’t difficult to get ordinary citizens to show up at Congressional town meetings to express their legitimate concerns regarding the potentially devastating cost of ObamaCare and the potential loss of consumer choice in the health care system. They are real and they are angry.

Speaker Pelosi then went so far as to claim that some protestors at town meetings were carrying signs bearing Nazi swastikas. This kind of hate-based attack with no basis in fact is beneath a Speaker of the US House of Representatives.

Senator Harry Reid doesn’t plan to hold a town hall meeting during the Congressional recess but will instead hold a closed door ticket-only conference on energy with former Vice PresidentAl Gore. By holding elite only closed door events and refusing to respond to legitimate questions from duly registered constituents, the Democrats are merely inadvertently fueling public outrage. This in turn will only serve to increase the number of Americans picking up signs, attending public meetings and demanding answers from their elected officials.

Exactly.

What is happening is Frankenstein’s Monster, completely. Congress set the tone for what has unfolded; people are frustrated from calling their legislator’s office and only speaking with staffers and leaving messages; they’re tired of pouring their hearts and concerns into a Web form on their congressperson’s website only to get a form email back which doesn’t even fully address their concerns. Town halls are the places where the middleman is nothing more than a mic or waiting a turn.

All one needs to do to validate these town hall attendances is to look at the polls.